The Pink Panther Strikes Again
The Pink Panther Strikes Again is a 1976 comedy film and the fourth in The Pink Panther series. Cast Singing cast *Peter Sellers - Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau Non-singing cast *Herbert Lom - Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus *Lesley-Anne Down - Olga Bariosova *Burt Kwouk - Cato Fong *Colin Blakely - Drummond *Leonard Rossiter - Quinlan *Richard Vernon - Professor Hugo Fassbender *Briony McRoberts - Margo Fassbender *Graham Stark - Dr. Auguste Balls Plot At a psychiatric hospital, former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus is largely recovered from his obsession to kill the new Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau and is about to be released when Clouseau, arriving to speak on Dreyfus' behalf, drives Dreyfus insane again. Dreyfus promptly escapes from the asylum and once again tries to kill Clouseau by planting a bomb while the Inspector (by periodic arrangement) duels with his manservant Cato (Burt Kwouk). The bomb destroys Clouseau's apartment and injures Cato, but Clouseau himself is unharmed, being lifted from the room by an inflatable disguise. Determining a more elaborate plan is needed, Dreyfus enlists an army of criminals to his cause and kidnaps nuclear physicist Professor Hugo Fassbender (Richard Vernon) and the Professor's daughter Margo (Briony McRoberts), forcing the professor to build a "doomsday weapon" in return for his daughter's freedom. Clouseau travels to England to investigate Fassbender's disappearance, where he wrecks their family home and ineptly interrogates Jarvis (Michael Robbins), Fassbender's cross-dressing butler. Although Jarvis is killed by the kidnappers, to whom he had become a dangerous witness, Clouseau discovers a clue that leads him to the Oktoberfest in Germany. Meanwhile, Dreyfus, using Fassbender's invention, dissolves the United Nations headquarters in New York City and blackmails the leaders of the world, including the President of the United States (a thinly-veiled impersonation of Gerald Ford, advised by a poorly-camouflaged Henry Kissinger), into assassinating Clouseau. However, many of the nations instruct their assassins to kill the other assassins to gain Dreyfus's favor and possibly the Doomsday Machine. As a result of their orders and Clouseau's habitual clumsiness, the assassins all end up killing each other until only the operatives of Egypt and Russia remain. The Egyptian assassin (an uncredited cameo by Omar Sharif) shoots one of Dreyfus' henchmen, mistaking him for Clouseau, but is seduced by the Russian operative Olga Bariosova, who makes the same mistake. When the real Clouseau arrives, he is perplexed by Olga's affections but learns from her Dreyfus's location at a castle in Bavaria. Dreyfus is elated at Clouseau's apparent demise, but suffers from a toothache; Clouseau, his entry frustrated by the castle's drawbridge, infiltrates Dreyfus's castle disguised as a dentist, intoxicates Dreyfus (and himself) with nitrous oxide and pulls one of Dreyfus's healthy teeth instead. Realising the deception, Dreyfus orders Clouseau killed, who again avoids Dreyfus' henchmen with his usual ineptitude. Enraged, Dreyfus prepares to dissolve England, but Clouseau unwittingly foils him by being catapulted onto Dreyfus's doomsday machine; the machine promptly malfunctions and begins disintegrating the castle walls. As the remaining henchmen, Fassbender and his daughter, and eventually Clouseau himself escape the dissolving castle, Dreyfus plays "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" on the castle's pipe organ, while himself disintegrating, until he and the castle vanish. Returning to Paris, Clouseau is finally reunited with Olga. However, their tryst is interrupted first by Clouseau's apparent inability to remove his clothes without a struggle, and then by Cato, whereupon all three are hurled by the reclining bed into the Seine. Immediately thereafter, a cartoon image of Clouseau begins swimming, unaware that a gigantic version of the Pink Panther character is waiting below him. Musical numbers *"Come to Me" - Clouseau *"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" - Clouseau Pink Panther Strikes Again, The